


Aid To The Beast Incarnate

by Beatrice_Sank



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: (I can't believe I just used that tag), Animal Abuse, Crack Treated Seriously, Detective Llama, Gen, Llama's POV, The Quaint and The Tragic, Trans Llama by the way, only it's way more serious than expected, selectively genderblind llama, that scene in Doctor's Lydecker's clinic in episode 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 03:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20650445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Sank/pseuds/Beatrice_Sank
Summary: Doctor Lydecker's waiting room, in the eyes of a Good Llama."He’s very much his own llama, and he’s decided there’s something about waiting rooms that piques his curiosity: he likes to observe. Never be a stranger to your fellow creatures’ troubles, he always says. Some might need his advice, or simply a sympathetic ear (although that might require some neck stretching, most of them being so impossibly close to the ground). He found, however, that the animals present generally preferred to stay silent. He understands. Waiting rooms are filled with more than can be expressed, when the masters are present."





	Aid To The Beast Incarnate

They’ve been waiting for about an hour and it’s beginning to feel like forever but he’s not in a hurry. It’s not often that they come into town. He remembers, when he first arrived, being impressed with the trees. Not so much now.

The consultation itself will be a formality, wrapped in sympathy and incompetence – the person who thinks they can heal him (“Doctor Lydecker”) being unable to understand the true substance of their job. At some point his turn will come, but his real call is here. In the waiting room.

The person who thinks they own him (“Reta”) also thinks he lives with them in a small wooden farm on White Tail Peak, keeping them company and occasionally providing wool. In reality, though, what he’s doing is living his best life exploring the local hills and lounging into transparent mountain lakes all day long, popping in for a bowl of grain. But he honestly thinks he’s doing the person who thinks they own him (“Reta”) a favor, letting them think that, because they don’t seem to be too integrated in the local community, generally keeping to themselves and lurking on the edge of town, playing guitar under the trees and smoking a lot of grass. Sometimes, “to please him”, they try to speak to him in broken Spanish, which he finds sort of offensive, especially since he was born in Montana. But they always scratch him just behind the withers, a spot he cannot reach, and rest their head against his neck. They’re okay. He doesn’t mind allowing them to use his wool to knit those god-awful caps.

It’s not a bad neighborhood, but owls are not owls around here.

Once, he heard a scream.

He’s already taken his time to walk around the room, casually rocking his head back and forth for the other animals to admire how elegant that makes him look. It’s always important to immediately establish he’s not a pet, and that they can refer to him if they’re experiencing any discomfort while waiting for the person who thinks they can heal them (“Doctor Lydecker”). He’s very much his own llama, and he’s decided there’s something about waiting rooms that piques his curiosity: he likes to observe. Never be a stranger to your fellow creatures’ troubles, he always says. Some might need his advice, or simply a sympathetic ear (although that might require some neck stretching, most of them being so impossibly close to the ground). He found, however, that the animals present generally preferred to stay silent. He understands. Waiting rooms are filled with more than can be expressed, when the masters are present. Today, especially, there is something in the air that he cannot put his hoof on, as if a lid had been placed over the crowded space to let it cook in its own misery, and not a sound was allowed to escape. It feels stormy, humid and strangely _angry_.

There is a dog in the corner and it’s a big dog, a huge dog in fact, one he would – he humbly admits –, be afraid of if he hadn’t noticed the limp in his rear legs and the way he wouldn’t look at the person who’s holding his collar. This dog has sharp teeth that could probably tear his throat off, and his presence makes all the other animals nervous. One would never guess, of course. But he has made his deductions. His master has stuck his leash under the couch’s leg, and kept it so short that he can hardly breathe. His eyes are desperate and submissive, one of his paws subtly shaking, and he keeps watching the room like someone who hasn’t been out for a long time. It’s clear enough that his master, who’s chatting with the person sitting next to them, the owner of an obviously depressed goldfish, is here to explain that their dog has gotten into a fight with other mutts again: he’s so badly trained, one should be more severe with him but it’s hard to bring oneself to. He’s just a wild thing, you see. So unruly. Lucky I’m here to keep him in line.

He’s amazed no one else seems to be able to see those things. The signs are pretty obvious, and the way one fellow moves always tells him more than he needs to know. Of course some of them are chatty, too. Take the cat who’s currently asleep in her padded basket over there. You would think, looking at the way her belly hangs almost to the ground, how her legs seem too short for her large body, that her problems are of a different nature. But before dozing off, she spoke to him at length, short of breath too, about the way her mistress kept feeding and feeding her. And you see, it’s always “Look what I’ve done especially for you, Missy. You should eat it all, isn’t it good? Don’t you love me at all, well, do you want to make me sad? You would be starving without me, do you know that, do you know that the family you were born into would have drown you if I had not been there, oh come sit on my knees Missy, you soft thing, what would you do, you fat, fat thing, what would you do without me, eh? Have another bowl, Missy. For me.” He has tried not to stare at the white of her eyes, turned a sick shade of yellow, as she said, tilting her head: “I’m never hungry anymore. I’m not hungry at all.”

And then there’s the canary. It’s her fault, he thinks, the buzzing in his ears impossible to miss. All the others are sad, distressing cases, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary lot of the waiting room. That canary, though. He’s always amazed at the number of caged birds people seem to keep here. This one is beautiful, so brightly yellow and with feathers so fine it’s hard to believe she’s not perfectly alright.

“It’s not singing anymore, you see” her master is explaining to the cat’s owner. “Used to cheer us up like nothing in the world.” But what good is a canary that doesn’t sing.

He's walked to the cage straight after his first tour of the room. There was a sort of pocket of silence around her, something dull that made his fur bristle. Her master had hung her cage to the coat rack, so he could face her easily. And when he looked into her small, charcoal eyes, they were burning. They were saying she was so damned, damned tired. They were saying that if anyone ever ask her to sing again, to sing one more note, a single trill, she would burst, explode into a cloud of yellow feathers, and take everything with her. It pierced through his skull, vibrated on his tongue, her despair, her rage. Since then he’s been walking around, vaguely thinking about snatching the cage from the wall. Truth to be told, he’s been nervous lately.

He saw another llama in the hills the other day, on Blue Pine Mountain’s side. It was the first time in his life he met someone who so obviously was a Bad Llama, not the kind who’s satisfied with spitting in an annoying person’s face – there’s nothing wrong with a bit of pride –, no, the kind who_ bites_. The other looked at him for a long time, not moving an inch, and he thought his neck was too erect, that such an angle was not natural. There was something wrong with his eyes, too. As if he was blind, but he knows what blindness looks like and it was nothing like this. After a while he turned away and disappeared in the woods.

It shook him, that encounter. In fact, he hasn’t sleep too well since then and bare patches have appeared in his fur, which is why the person who thinks they own him (“Reta”) got all worked up and brought him here.

He’s afraid the person who think they can heal animals (“Doctor Lydecker”) is going to say he’s in heat or other such nonsense, because they don’t know him at all and always insisted it could happen. It never worried him before – obviously he doesn’t do heats, he tried to let them know time and time again by irritatingly scraping his hoof on the tiled floor – but with another llama around, he’s not so certain anymore. He doesn’t want that one anywhere near him nor his farm.

He thought about leaving, more theoretically than anything. It’s not that easy – he’s always been a free llama but there’s something about this town, the lights that rise from it at night, the still air above the lakes, that make him reluctant to move. The grass is top notch too. In all honesty he really doesn’t want to cross the woods. And circuses rarely ever come this way.

The person sitting close to the door keeps staring at him through red-rimmed glasses, as he tries not to look at that canary again. They are holding a wooden log, absentmindedly cradling it and letting their fingers traveling across the ridges. They are not an owner, this one. And actually, he sort of likes their cardigan. They’re probably worried about termites, if the faint throbbing he can detect with his sharp ears is any indication. Though it could as well be whispers. Or groans? He hopes the log gets better.

The person sitting in front of the log’s companion has obviously come straight from a fishing trip with what they hope to be a king salmon, and is really a large trout. Their hands are wrapped around it awkwardly, as if waiting for the other attendees to congratulate them for such an impressive catch. No master seems to mind having a cadaver in the room.

The fish’s lower jaw is hanging from her head by a thin streak of flesh, and you can still see where she bled. As a rule he doesn’t condescend to look at the masters too much, but this time, because of the canary, he will make an exception. He slowly bends all the way down to face the fisherperson, and waits. They nervously look at the person who thinks they own him (“Reta”), but they’re engrossed in a gardening magazine and don’t notice. A minute passes, then another. When he’s satisfied, he retreats and waits some more. The fisherperson is looking at the log’s companion now. After a while, without noticing it, they begin to bring the fish closer to their chest. Imperceptibly, they start cradling it.

But he has to turn away from the scene, because two newcomers have just entered the office and they look extremely interesting. There’s the one in charge of caging people ("Sheriff Truman"), who rarely ever does, which is a nice trait. He’s always liked their eyes, and the way they take their time to look at animals like they know there’s something there they don’t really get. He straightens up a little, to greet them politely. He’s eager to interact a bit more, but unfortunately, the person who calls names (“Barb”) calls the person who thinks they own him (“Reta”), and he has to follow. Which is a crying shame, because the other person is someone he’s never seen before, and their hair is even shinier than the canary’s feathers, and as black as her eyes. They cut a dashing figure, and frankly it’s rare to see people who have such a good posture – it has to be saluted. Besides, he can already tell the person’s observant, just like him. They’ll probably acknowledge a fellow detective if he makes himself known. He has to negotiate an emergency back out with his rear end, something that always requires a bit of finesse _vis-à-vis_ tangled limbs and general coordination but, pulling his jaw in, he manages to get a few seconds face to face with the dark stranger. Their eyes meet. And suddenly he feels a pull, such a sense of kinship for a fleeting moment but also a flash of ridicule, as if he had just looked into the mirror to realize the shirt he had on all day was inside out. Not that he would know, of course. It’s a strange thought. He thinks he snorts in emotion, at the person or at himself, and then it’s over, and he’s carried away from the room. The stranger, it seems, remains unfazed.

Two days later, he sees the other llama again.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I just wrote a llama fic. Anyway if you're reading this, thanks for indulging me. I hope the gender-neutral syntax isn't too much of a mess.


End file.
